Program Overview and Purpose
Florida’s Safe Routes to School (SRTS) initiatives can help communities address their school transportation needs and encourage more students to walk or cycle to school. SRTS strives to enable and encourage students in grades Kindergarten through High School, including those with disabilities, to walk and cycle to school; to make walking and biking to school safer and more appealing; and to facilitate the planning, development, and implementation of projects that will improve safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption, and air pollution in the vicinity of schools. In addition to encouraging more students to walk or cycle to school, the program also seeks to address the safety needs of students already walking or biking in less than ideal conditions.
A successful SRTS Program integrates health, physical activity and fitness, traffic relief, environmental awareness, and safety under one program. The program encompasses routes and techniques used to encourage students to walk or cycle to or from school. While the program will not cover all identified needs, we encourage schools, local transportation officials and other qualified groups to cooperate and apply to meet some of the identified needs, while they address other identified needs locally or through other methods.
SRTS program is not designed to take the place of good school site planning or cooperative planning between school boards and local planning agencies. When new schools are considered, the school board should work closely with the appropriate city, county, Metropolitan Planning Organization/Transportation Planning Organization and/or Regional Planning Council, so all aspects of the school’s planning can be accomplished as a cooperative effort. Schools sited far from the populations they serve will require more students to be bused or transported in motor vehicles, thus minimizing or negating the opportunity for students to walk or bike to school. Planners should consider financial costs incurred by busing as well as societal and health costs related to inactivity and social exclusion, before selecting a school site. We expect planning for new schools to include comprehensive bicycle and pedestrian planning for connectivity to surrounding neighborhoods. This will increase the ability of students to walk or cycle to these new schools.
School Boards should provide all needed facilities on school property, so the SRTS program will not fund infrastructure such as sidewalks or multi-use paths on school property. Supplying bike racks for school properties is discussed in the Infrastructure section.
Eligible Applicants
The SRTS program is for the benefit of public, private and tribal schools serving Kindergarten through High School. Applicants will also need to partner with a Maintaining Agency. A Maintaining Agency is a government agency which is able to:
· enter into a legal agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation
· design and/or construct the project in accordance with all federal requirements,
· provide the initial funding for the project before being reimbursed, and
· maintain the completed Infrastructure project
Generally, Maintaining Agencies will need to be Local Area Program (LAP) certified, since most SRTS projects are done through LAP Agreements. The District has the option of developing alternate ways to get the projects completed, including designing and/or building the project in-house, contracting for these services, or buying equipment such as bike racks or traffic engineering equipment for the locals to install and maintain. Contact your District for more information on how your District is handling these matters.
Funding
The SRTS Program is 100 percent funded, and is managed through the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) on a cost-reimbursement basis. Applications are submitted to the local FDOT District Safe Routes to School Coordinator. They can help you with questions.
The following measures are critical:
· Projects and programs will be awarded through a competitive process at both the local and state level.
· Applications are reviewed at the District level for compliance with SRTS Guidelines.
· Applicants are encouraged to be as cost effective as possible so that more SRTS projects and programs can be funded.
· Applicants must prioritize their requests and apply for no more than 5 projects during each Call for Applications.
· These Guidelines list examples of eligible and ineligible SRTS projects and programs. Always check for the most recent version of the Guidelines, since they do evolve over time.
Comprehensive Program/Planning Process
The SRTS Program is unique in its overriding emphasis on community participation in the development and implementation of projects and programs. Community participation involves the public, schools, parents, teachers, students, local agencies, the businesses community, key professionals, and others in the development of proposals. The resulting safety solutions are comprehensive, integrated and sustainable.
Three key elements of the Comprehensive Planning Process
The Five E’s
SRTS efforts incorporate - directly or indirectly - five components, often referred to as the "5 E's". They are:
· Engineering - Creating operational and physical improvements to the infrastructure surrounding schools that reduce speeds and potential conflicts with motor vehicle traffic, and establish safer and fully accessible crossings, walkways, trails and bikeways.
· Education - Teaching students about the broad range of transportation choices, instructing them in important lifelong bicycling and walking safety skills, and launching driver safety campaigns in the vicinity of schools.
· Encouragement - Using events and activities to promote walking and bicycling.
· Enforcement - Partnering with local law enforcement to ensure traffic laws are obeyed in the vicinity of schools (this includes enforcement of the duty of drivers to travel at or under the speed limit and to yield to pedestrians in crossings, as well as enforcement of proper walking and bicycling behaviors), and initiating community enforcement such as crossing guard programs.
· Evaluation - Monitoring and documenting outcomes and trends through the collection of data, including the collection of data before and after the intervention(s).
For more information on the definitions and ideas for each E, see the appropriate sections of the Safe Routes to School Guide produced by the National Center for Safe Routes to School and located at: http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/.
Applicants must summarize what they have already done and what they propose to do to address each of the E’s.
School-based SRTS Committee
Successful SRTS programs begin by developing a comprehensive SRTS plan for an individual school or group of nearby schools. This is done by bringing together the right people to form a school-based SRTS Committee made up of representatives from each of the 5E’s. The committee must include representatives from the affected school(s), not just from the school board or the school transportation section. The purpose of the Committee is to:
· identify problems in and around the school, which are preventing students from walking or biking to school,
· propose solutions to these problems, using the 5E approach, and
· decide which solutions can be handled by the Committee and community resources, and which will require SRTS funding.
Applicants are required to form a school-based SRTS Committee which has had at least one advertised public meeting before their application is submitted. They are also required to report in the application the names, titles and E represented by each member of the Committee, and what has been discussed at each meeting.
A School-based SRTS Committee can be based on an existing committee like a Community Traffic Safety Team, a PTA/PTO committee or a School Safety Committee, but other members must be added so the final committee includes school and community representatives from all 5E’s. If one of these groups is used as the basis of a SRTS Committee, separate meetings (which can be before or after the regular group meeting) must be held to concentrate on SRTS planning. It is not acceptable to spend a few minutes of a regular committee meeting discussing SRTS and call it a SRTS Committee.
The Committee should include representatives from the school or schools, elected officials, Metropolitan Planning Organizations/Transportation Planning Organizations, appropriate county and city agencies, local neighborhood associations and non-profit organizations. It is important to involve the public and affected neighborhood associations in planning efforts so everyone will be on board if a project is selected for funding. If representatives of the PTA/PTO and affected neighborhoods are not included on the SRTS Committee, special meetings with these groups will need to be held to gain their support for proposed SRTS Infrastructure projects, as explained in more detail in the Infrastructure section.
Planning Tools
We recommend that applicants use the Florida Safe Ways to School Tool Kit as their planning process. The Tool Kit contains a process for forming a planning committee and creating and implementing a comprehensive Safe Routes to School plan. The Toolkit can be downloaded from: http://safety.hhp.ufl.edu/index.php/about/safe-ways/ .
Use the national data collection forms located under Evaluation on the website of the National Center for SRTS: http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/data-central/data-collection-forms. The Student In-class Travel Tally and Parent Survey are required to be conducted 3 times during this process. The results must be submitted to the National Center for SRTS (NCSRTS) data base at least six (6) weeks before submitting your application, so you can include the required data summary charts from the NCSRTS as attachments to your application as well as summarizing the results in the body of your Infrastructure application or Non-Infrastructure information form.
1. Before an application or information form is submitted
2. Shortly before a SRTS project begins
3. Three to six months after it is completed
The results from these survey forms must be reported to the District FDOT office which is overseeing your project, as part of the final report on your project.
Notification and Administration
Applicants are required to list contact information on each SRTS application. This gives the Districts a point of contact if questions need to be answered or if modifications are needed to the application. After SRTS projects are reviewed and funding decisions are made, the District will notify each applicant of their proposal’s selection or non-selection. A representative from the District will also contact the designated local contact person to help him or her through the process of formalizing the agreement and completing the project or program.
Special Requirements
(Note: the following overview may not be all-inclusive.)
There are a number of Federal and State requirements that apply to projects under the SRTS program. Applicants must ensure that they are knowledgeable and able to follow these requirements.
· Title 23:
All projects funded by SRTS funds must comply with Title 23 requirements of the U.S. Code which include, but are not limited to, the Davis Bacon prevailing wage rates, competitive bidding, and other contracting requirements. Whoever carries out the construction (state, county, city, or consultant hired by any of these entities) must comply with all applicable Title 23 requirements. USDOT regulations are available at: www.fhwa.dot.gov/legsregs/legislat.html.
(Note: Applicants must work with a Maintaining Agency such as a local government that has experience with Federal Construction Contracts in general, and Title 23 requirements in particular.)
As part of the Title 23 requirements, all SRTS projects must also comply with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. Most SRTS projects will likely be eligible for categorical exclusion under the provisions of 23 CFR Sec 771.117 which recognize there is no significant environmental impact in the construction of bicycle and pedestrian facilities.
(Note: The categorical exclusion must be requested and granted; it is not automatic.)
· Inclusion in TIP/STIP:
All projects funded must be programmed in the local Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPO’s) or Transportation Planning Organization’s (TPO’s) Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) if applicable, and the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). It is recommended that applicants for projects located in an MPO or TPO area work with their MPO or TPO to ensure local support and consistency with regulations.
(Note: the TIP is sometimes called the Comprehensive Improvement Program or CIP.)
· Local Permits:
Maintaining Agencies for SRTS projects or programs are responsible for any and all local permits relevant to their project. Applicant and Maintaining Agency personnel should work together to determine and acquire the required permits.
· Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA):
SRTS projects and programs must be designed to reasonably meet the needs of persons with disabilities. In doing so, the project director for the SRTS project or program must comply with all applicable provisions of the ADA. National standards are available at: http://www.ada.gov/, and information on Florida DOT’s ADA design standards is available at http://www.dot.state.fl.us/projectmanagementoffice/ADA/ADADesignStandards.shtm.
Infrastructure Projects
Basic Information:
Proposed Infrastructure or Engineering projects may be located on or off the state highway system. Infrastructure projects usually take longer to plan and implement, and cost more than most Non-Infrastructure programs. But when they are designed to correct an identified problem, they have a great potential to help more students walk and bike safely to and from school.
Public support for Infrastructure projects is mandatory. The public should be informed of the proposal through presentations at such groups as Neighborhood Associations, PTA/PTO’s and religious and community groups, as well as through writing articles and letters to the editor of local newspapers. The public should also be invited to attend the school-based SRTS Committee meetings during which the school-based SRTS committee discusses the project proposals. Although meetings of the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee and MPO are considered public meetings and should be part of the public involvement process, these meetings must be supplemented by meetings with the affected Neighborhood Associations or other neighborhood meetings, and meetings with the PTA/PTO’s for the affected schools, in order to ensure that those directly affected by the projects are informed and support the projects. In the past, there have been a few instances where a proper public involvement process was not followed for SRTS projects and affected neighbors raised objections to proposed projects after much time and effort had been invested in them. To date, these objections have been able to be overcome and the projects have gone forward slightly altered. We want to avoid any repeat of these problems in the future, by ensuring that a thorough public involvement process is followed.